


The Science of Turophilia

by involuntaryorange



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU: Farmers' Market, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, But there are certainly cracky bits, Cheeselock, Crack, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Happy Ending, Humor, I have no idea what I'm doing, Looking back this might not actually be crack, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2727599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/involuntaryorange/pseuds/involuntaryorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finally checks out the neighbourhood farmers' market, and discovers the advantages of shopping local.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> So, I never thought I would write a fic because fiction is not my strong suit, but I thought up this ridiculous premise when I was trying to come up with a prompt for earlgreytea68's Advent Drabbles. I was too late to contribute my prompt but it kept niggling at me and I kept giggling over the various details my brain was involuntarily adding. So I wrote it down. 
> 
> This is the first fiction I've written in 15 years and I was never very good at it to begin with, but I had fun with it and it helped me get over the writer's block I was struggling with in my professional work. I'm posting it because maybe some part of it will make someone else giggle as well.
> 
> Unbritpicked, so I'm sure it's chock full of unintentional Americanisms.

John limped through the stalls, dodging pushchairs and avoiding eye contact with the overly enthusiastic vendors trying to get him to sample their hemp lotions and vegan dips. 

After their unexpected encounter in Russell Square Gardens, Mike Stamford had called and invited him over for dinner (“Suzy wants to meet you, says she wants to hear embarrassing stories about med school. Just don’t tell her about the golf buggy incident!”). John had volunteered to bring dessert. He certainly wasn’t going to attempt to bake something, especially not in the tiny, ill-equipped kitchenette in his depressing bedsit, so when he woke up to a reasonably sunny Saturday morning he decided to make his way to the local farmers’ market. He’d walked past signs for it before, but he’d never had a reason to actually go, since there was only so much kale a man could eat on his own.

Although he had been hoping that getting some exercise and fresh air would lift his spirits, he hadn’t anticipated how crowded the market would be, and more than once he found his hand instinctively twitching toward an imaginary gun after being jostled by passersby. He tried to keep his head down, focusing on the tip of his cane as it tapped against the pavement. Eventually, the yeasty smell of fresh bread drew his gaze upward, and he sidled up to a table heaped with all manner of baked goods. The banner running across the top of the booth was decorated with practically pornographic close-ups of pies and the words “Greg’s Goodies.”

“You looking for anything specific?” John looked up from the Victoria Sponge he’d been surreptitiously poking, and found the vendor grinning at him. He was a middle-aged man, handsome, whose salt-and-pepper hair was at odds with the silver hoop in one of his ears and his shirt, which was decorated with tattoo flash that said “BAKE OR DIE.”

“I don’t suppose you have anything low carb here, do you.” John gave a wry smile as he eyed a particularly appealing carrot cake. (After cracking a joke about his expanded waistline, Mike had mentioned that he’d been trying out the Atkins diet. John had resisted the urge to comment, though really, the man was a doctor and should know better than that.)

The vendor laughed. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck there, mate. Maybe you should get some bacon from Miss Hooper.” He gestured with his chin to a booth across the way, where a young woman with long brown hair pulled back into a tight ponytail was erasing the words “lamb chops, £14/kg” from her chalkboard inventory. According to the hand-lettered sign on the booth, her stall was called “Straight from the Slab.”

“Hah, well, not so sure my friend would like that for dessert.”

“Fair enough.” The vendor put on an exaggerated scheming expression. “Then maybe you should just forget him altogether and get what _you_ want.” 

It was nice to be having a conversation with a stranger who wasn’t regarding him with obvious pity. John was used to people constantly casting anxious glances at his cane, or — even worse — maintaining the kind of  unnaturally focused eye contact that can only come from studiously _avoiding_ looking at his cane. “Yeah, maybe that’s a good call. Now I just need to figure out what I want.”

“How ’bout a —”

“Gavin, can I borrow your phone? The battery on mine’s dead.”

John turned his head to the side to see who had just interrupted the first decent conversation he’d had in days (and christ, wasn’t that a depressing thought, reduced to socializing with friendly bakers trying to sell him cupcakes). Then he turned his head up. It was a tall, slender man with dark curly hair and an… interesting face. (John had a weak spot for interesting faces.) On top of what appeared to be some rather posh clothes, he was wearing an apron with various molecular structures printed on it; John couldn’t recognize any of them from his biochemistry training. 

The vendor rolled his eyes. “For chrissakes, Sherlock, it’s Greg. It’s literally IN THE NAME OF MY SHOP. And no, you can’t borrow my phone, I dropped it in a vat of cake batter yesterday — I threw that batch out, by the way.” (This last bit was directed toward John, who was eyeing the Victoria Sponge with new suspicion.)

The man — Sherlock? — gave a put upon sigh. “Er, here, use mine,” John volunteered, passing his phone over. 

The man turned to him as though he hadn’t even realized there was another person there, ran his eyes rapidly up and down John’s body, and then took the phone. As he slid out the keypad and began typing, he spoke again without looking up. “Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Sorry?” John gripped his cane a bit harder and glanced at Greg, whose impassive expression wasn’t very informative.

Still typing, and still looking intently at the tiny phone screen, Sherlock repeated himself. “Which was it — Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you know…?”

“Ah, Molly, that must be the goat’s milk.” The brown-haired woman from the butcher stall had approached with a small glass bottle in hand. Sherlock closed the phone and passed it back to John — still without looking — as he reached for the bottle with his other hand. 

The woman smiled shyly and shrugged her shoulders. “It wasn’t a problem, I was going to the farm anyway to pick up my meat.”

Sherlock ignored her response to a “thank you” he hadn’t given, instead unscrewing the cap of the bottle and taking a deep sniff. He held the bottle up to the light and peered at it intently. He dipped an index finger into the liquid and drew it out, rubbing it against his thumb as though assessing the texture. Then he popped the finger into his mouth, sucking the milk from it. John tried not to stare at Sherlock’s lips wrapped around his knuckle. John failed. He continued failing not to stare as Sherlock withdrew the finger and smacked his lips thoughtfully.

“Hmm, too grassy. Tell them they need to change the proportions of their feed.” Sherlock handed the open bottle back to Molly and turned his back to her, dismissing her before she could even attempt to respond. After a bit of futile stammering, she walked back to her stand.

“How do you feel about blue cheese?” Sherlock had removed a handkerchief from his pocket and was meticulously wiping his hands.

John glanced at Greg, who didn’t look like he was preparing an answer, and concluded that he himself must have been the target of the question, nonsensical though it may be. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Blue cheese. It’s an important component of any well-selected cheese plate, but many people find the odor off-putting.”

“Who said anything about cheese plates?”

Shelock’s piercing stare returned to John. “I did. You’re an Army doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. You’ve been invited to the house of an old friend for dinner — possibly a long-lost army pal, more likely a medical school classmate. You volunteered to bring dessert but you find yourself stymied by your friend’s irrational refusal to ingest carbohydrates. Fad diets, the realm of the weak and witless. But what you don’t know, much like the rest of the population of England, is that a cheese plate is considered dessert in many places. And that is where I come in.” Sherlock gestured with a flourish toward an adjacent stall, a table piled with a haphazard assortment of cheeses.

John’s eyebrows, which had been steadily climbing toward his hairline over the course of Sherlock’s speech, reached an all-time apex. “Brilliant!”

“And I didn’t even get to your psychosomatic limp.”

“My — what?”

“Never mind. Come with me.” 

John looked at Greg and shrugged; Greg only smiled indulgently and waved him off. John walked the few steps to Sherlock’s booth, where Sherlock was already managing to look impatient.

“So, you’re the owner of…” John glanced up at the banner. “…The Science of… Turophilia?”

“Indeed.” The man stuck out his hand. “Sherlock Holmes, master cheesemaker.”

John shook the outstretched hand. “John Watson, amateur cheese eater.” He might have seen the shadow of a smirk cross Sherlock’s face at that, but it also might have been wishful thinking. Dumb jokes might work for Three-Continents Watson with tipsy women in loud pubs, but Crippled Depressed Watson’s game with ethereal cheese-making fairies was another matter.

“Well, John Watson, what kind of cheese do you like to eat?” Was it John’s imagination, or was Sherlock flirting back?

“Um, I’m afraid I don’t know very much about cheese. I like… cheddar?”

“Practically everyone’s an idiot when it comes to cheese. At least you’re aware of it. Just trust everything I say and you’ll be fine.” Okay, it was John’s imagination.

Sherlock continued speaking. “I make all my own cheeses, following strict recipes that have been exhaustively tested to ensure maximal enjoyment. Cheesemaking is a science like any other. It’s all about manipulating variables — milk sources, temperatures, bacterial cultures, curing times, pH. If you are precise about what you put in, then you know exactly what you’ll wind up with. I can identify the age and diet of a goat by the taste of its milk. I can tell butter made from a Guernsey’s milk apart from the butter of a Jersey.” 

“That’s amazing.” John had never met anyone so obsessed with cheese. Hell, he was pretty sure he’d never met anyone so obsessed with _anything_. And he’d gone to _medical school_.

Sherlock smiled modestly. “Merely deductive skill.” And with that he began digging through his pile of cheeses, muttering to himself and occasionally setting aside a bundle with a small “aha!” When he had amassed a small collection, he began unwrapping one and turned his attention back to John.

“This is a sheep’s milk cheese, aged for three years. The aging lends a nuttiness that complements the natural tartness of the sheep’s milk. The crystals in this one practically bounce off your palate.” He held out a chunk impaled on the tip of his knife. 

John nodded, pretending that he not only understood what Sherlock was saying but was impressed by it. Well, he _was_ impressed by it, but probably not for the reasons Sherlock intended. He took the small cube and chewed it with what he hoped was a thoughtful expression on his face. It tasted like cheese. “Yes, very, uh, nutty.”

Sherlock’s lack of eye roll suggested that he was too focused on his task to actually listen to John. “This blue cheese is made from raw cow’s milk. I’ve cultivated my own unique strain of mold that toes the fine line between pungent and offensive.” He held a chunk out in his fingers and dropped it into John’s open palm. “You know, some people have compared the aroma of blue cheese to the smell of sex.” John inhaled his partially-chewed cheese and began coughing violently. “I tend to think those people should encourage their sexual partners to seek medical attention. Though you would know, as a medical man yourself.”

“Um, right. It’s… yes. It tastes very… blue? Like blue cheese, I mean. Not blue like pornography. I don’t know what pornography tastes like.” God, he was becoming more awkward by the second.

Sherlock, thankfully, was barreling on, ignoring John’s inane commentary. “This is a young cow’s milk cheese that was soaked in pinot noir for approximately 24 hours at the start of the aging process. I ensure that each cheese reaches the same exact shade of red before I remove it from the wine. It involves meticulous study.”

“A study in scarlet,” John blurted out, and then inwardly cringed.

“Hm?” Sherlock looked up from the cheese he was gently cradling in his hand, and raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, nothing. It was just… alliteration.”

“A study in scarlet. Hm.” A faraway expression came over Sherlock’s face. “Interesting. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but people like that sort of thing. Yes.” He nodded decisively, as though he and John had agreed on something, then returned to his monologue where he had left off. “The tannins from the wine lend an astringent quality that balances the creaminess, keeps it from being too rich.” This time he held the sample out on an outstretched palm, and John plucked it up and popped it into his mouth. 

“That’s very nice. You can really taste the wine.”

“It does retain some alcohol, though in very small amounts. Wouldn’t be enough to intoxicate an infant.”

“So you’re not trying to get me drunk, then?” John tried his best rakish grin.

It was futile, because Sherlock was already focusing on the next sample. He unwrapped a small white cylinder and began spreading a bit on a cracker. “And here’s a lovely fresh chèvre. It’s perhaps a rather obvious choice, but it does round out the plate nicely. And it’s delightful paired with this.” Sherlock drizzled some dark amber honey onto the mound of cheese with a flourish, his long, graceful fingers wielding the spoon with expert precision. He then used those fingers to pop the entire thing directly into John’s mouth — which had been hanging open in an overwhelming combination of confusion, admiration, and arousal.

“Mm, that’s good,” John managed, after he finally swallowed the contents of his suddenly-too-dry mouth.

“I harvest the honey from my own bee hives,” Sherlock stated proudly.

“That’s very impressive,” John replied. Sherlock seemed to preen under the praise momentarily, but then he shook his head back and forth as if to clear it.

“Okay, so.” He looked down at the pile and started sorting out packages. “We’ve got the aged sheep, the special blue, the pinot, and the chevre…”

As he began stacking up the cheeses, it suddenly occurred to John that he’d been so swept up by Sherlock’s enthusiasm (and perhaps some other things) that he’d forgotten that this was building towards a monetary transaction. His army pension was barely covering the rent on his tiny bedsit; he definitely didn’t have money to spend on luxuries. And he might not be an expert, but he knew enough about cheese to know that quality was expensive. There weren’t even prices listed anywhere, and that was never a good sign. 

Oh well. There was nothing for it; it was time to let this little fantasy go. Better to speak up now, before Sherlock could give an actual sum, which would somehow multiply the humiliation exponentially. 

“You’ve been very helpful, but I — I don’t think I can afford this,” John said, squaring his shoulders and looking anywhere but at Sherlock’s face.

“Don’t worry about it. You’re the first person who hasn’t told me to piss off by the time I got to the line about sex.” Sherlock passed the (alarmingly heavy) bag over to John, who looked up at him and opened his mouth to protest. Sherlock immediately waved a hand lazily through the air, batting the unspoken protests away. “Besides, the first one’s free. That’s how I get my clients hooked.” With that he winked at John — he bloody _winked_ — and turned his attention to another customer.

John stood there opening and closing his mouth for a moment, deliberating just leaving the bag on the counter and making a run for it. Ultimately, he decided that limping away as rapidly as he could (which wasn’t particularly rapidly) would just be too pathetic an exit, even for him. He’d probably trip. And knock over an old lady. 

And maybe… maybe this debt could be an excuse. For what, he didn’t know. But he’d figure something out. He turned around, bag clasped firmly in his hand, and prepared to walk back home.

“Hey, mate, no pie for you?” The baker was giving him a knowing grin.

“Ah, sorry, no, I guess not.” He held up the bag and shrugged. “Ta for the help though… Greg, was it?”

“Yep, like it says on the sign. Greg Lestrade. And you are…?”

“John. Watson.”

“Pleased to meet you, John. Maybe next week I can tempt you with something sweet?”

John glanced back at the cheese booth, where Sherlock appeared to be arguing with a middle-aged woman. “You cannot _possibly_ expect me to sell you cheese to put on _Ritz crackers_ ,” Sherlock shouted as he threw his arms around in disgust. 

“Yeah, I’ll be back.” John nodded a goodbye and began the walk back to his bedsit, with an unexpected spring in his step. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have been able to guess, sheffiesharpe's Secretly Punk Lestrade has become part of my headcanon. And I don't actually know anything about cheese.


	2. Returning to the Scene of the Crime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John has a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all were so nice about what I published the other day that I was inspired to continue the story! I was stuck on a long flight and pounded this chapter out. It's slightly less cracky than the first chapter, but fear not, the crack will return in full force in the next chapter.
> 
> Many thanks to Ariane DeVere for her Sherlock transcripts, which have been an invaluable resource.

John had a plan. It was a simple plan, but a plan nonetheless. 

He had rehearsed it in front of a mirror, and he was going over it for the thousandth time in his head as he shoved his way through the pedestrians milling in the middle of the walkway. He had prepared for every outcome he could think of. He essentially had created and memorized an elaborate flow-chart.

As he approached The Science of Turophilia and caught sight of Sherlock, animatedly lecturing at a young couple who looked not unlike a pair of rabbits caught in headlights, he began to question his plan. Well, not the plan itself, per se, but the plan _of_ the plan. The meta-plan, as it were. What if Sherlock didn’t even remember him? What if he gave free cheese to everyone? And… winked at them? What if it wasn’t even a wink? What if he was just a terrible businessman with a nervous tic?

While he was mentally enumerating all of the possible reasons he could have misconstrued Sherlock’s interest, he arrived at the periphery of the stall. Sherlock caught sight of him and his face brightened. “John! I told you you’d be back for more.” The young couple took advantage of his distraction and scurried away.

_Initiate sequence one._ John smiled. “Yes, well. The cheese was a big hit.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Mike was thrilled that he could eat dessert!”

“Far be it from me to criticize a diet that tells people to eat as much cheese as they can, even if it _is_ completely asinine.”

John snorted. _Continue with the plan_. “Yeah, anyway, you were so generous last week that I thought I should buy you a coffee to repay you.” _Conversational node one reached; await further input._

“Nonsense; you’ve already repaid me.”

“I… have?” This was not a response John had prepared for.

“With your copywriting skills.” He gestured to a scribbled sign stuck to one of his tent posts, which read: _This week’s special cheese: A Study in Scarlet._ “Well, I use the term ‘skills’ loosely. But I’ve already sold twice as much as I did last week.” 

John squinted at the sign in confusion. “You named your cheese after something I said?”

“Geoff is always telling me that I need to ‘market’ my products,” Sherlock said, infusing the word “market” with as much derision as possible without actually blowing a raspberry. “ _I_ think that anyone with even half a brain would be able to tell that my cheeses are superior without my needing to say anything. Then again, ‘half a brain’ would be a charitable assessment for the vast majority of the population.”

“Oh…” It was flattering that Sherlock had remembered and made use of their previous conversation, but did he mean to turn down the offer of coffee? John had tried to be a little subtle, but really only for the sake of plausible deniability — surely someone as perceptive as Sherlock had picked up on his ulterior motives. And had quickly quashed them. “Um… okay. I’m glad that I was able to help.” John scratched the nape of his neck and looked at his shoes. “Anyway. I’d better get going, I’ve got —” 

“John.”

“Yeah?” John looked up. Sherlock was holding out a small, paper-wrapped bundle. Confused, John stuck his hand out and allowed Sherlock to drop the bundle into it.

“ _Now_ you owe me a coffee.” An unexpectedly shy smile had crept across Sherlock’s face.

John grinned. “Great, so I’ll come back when the market is done…?”

“Oh, I thought we could just go now.” Sherlock pulled his apron over his head, balled it up, and tossed it behind him. Then he vaulted over the counter and, with a quick yank, pulled down the front flap of the tent, closing off the booth. “There’s a booth down the way that makes a decent cup of coffee. I know the owner — got her out of a jam once when her caterers cancelled right before some sort of ridiculous hen night tea party.”

Once again, John found himself five minutes into a conversation feeling like he’d been run over by a steamroller. A steamroller wearing extremely well-tailored trousers. “Oh. You don’t have to keep your booth open?”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything. One of the many benefits of being self-employed. Follow me.” He began to stride away.

“Wait a second!” Sherlock stopped and turned around cautiously. “I just wanted to stop by here for a mo.” John pocketed the cheese, grabbed Sherlock’s upper arm, and steered him over to Greg’s Goodies.

“John!” Greg looked surprisingly happy to see him. “I was hoping you’d be back.”

“Well, I did say I would. I’m surprised you remembered, though.”

“Hey, it’s not every day that Sherlock takes a shine to someone. That makes you pretty memorable.”

Sherlock was looking at the ground uncomfortably, flushing slightly. It was, in a word, adorable, and it made John want to tease him mercilessly to see how red he could get. 

“Just wanted to pick up something that will go well with coffee.”

Greg looked from John to Sherlock, down to John’s hand on Sherlock’s arm, and grinned knowingly. “I have a chocolate brioche that’ll be perfect.”

“Great!” John let go of Sherlock’s arm and started to take out his wallet, but Greg waved him off.

“No, no, I always save one to give to Sherlock at the end of the day. This’ll just be me giving it to him early.” 

John looked at Sherlock, who shrugged. “Okay, but I’m coming back for a scone or something later.” He took the small paper bag that Greg proffered, and turned to Sherlock. “Lead the way.” And Sherlock did, weaving through the crowds effortlessly while John hobbled after him. 

\--

“Sherlock!” An elderly woman standing beside an enormous, gleaming espresso machine was beaming at them. “How lovely to see you! And you’ve brought a gentleman friend!”

Sherlock flushed again, leaning over and kissing the woman on the cheek. “Hello, Mrs. Hudson. This is Dr. John Watson.” 

It was strange to see him so deferential and affectionate, but John supposed that Mrs. Hudson _did_ have a maternal air about her that made you want to let her coddle you.“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Hudson.”

“What would you like, Sherlock?” Mrs. Hudson dried her hands on a flannel as she put a bottle of cream back in her cooler. 

“Medium coffee, cream and three sugars.”

“I’m not your housekeeper, Sherlock. You put the cream and sugar in yourself.” She gestured to the sideboard with its array of silver pitchers and sweeteners. Sherlock pouted. She hesitated for several seconds, and then she sighed deeply. “Fine. But just this once, mind. What about you, John?”

“Do you have darjeeling?” John missed coffee, but he wasn’t supposed to drink it anymore. If he listened to Ella on this point, he felt less guilty about the blog thing.

“Of course. Coming right up.” Mrs. Hudson turned and began messing about with various machines, while Sherlock went to claim a small table that had just opened up in the eating area. After a minute or two, Mrs. Hudson handed John two steaming cups. “Here you go, dear.”

“Ta, how much do I owe you?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly charge a friend of Sherlock’s!” John opened his mouth to protest but Mrs. Hudson gave him a stern look that told him it would be futile. He meekly took his cups and left. 

\--

“How does anyone make any money here?” John grumbled as he slid into the seat opposite Sherlock. 

“They’re merely repaying me for all of the favors I’ve done for them.” Sherlock was sitting back with his feet up on the seat of another chair, rolling a coffee stirrer between his fingers. 

“So basically, you just go around doing things for people so they’re indebted to you in the future.” John passed the coffee across to him.

Sherlock’s grabbed the cup and looked John intently in the eyes. “It’s worked for me so far.”

This time it was John’s turn to blush. “Yes, well.” He busied himself unwrapping the brioche, tore it in half and handed one half to Sherlock. “So how did you get into making cheese?”

Sherlock began picking the bits of chocolate out of the brioche and eating them. “It was something of a family business.”

“Your family are cheese makers too?”

“Not quite. They’re involved in the dairy industry. They don’t approve of what I do.”

“They don’t approve of you… making cheese?”

“It’s complicated. Suffice it to say, selling artisan gouda at a farmers’ market was not what they had planned for me.”

“Now _that_ I know about.”

Sherlock looked at him appraisingly. “Yes, I would imagine your parents weren’t too happy about your joining the army.”

“Well, my mum wasn’t.”

“Your father approved?”

“No, uh, he died. While I was in medical school.” John gritted his teeth and ripped little pieces off his pastry, waiting for the awkward condolences of someone who isn’t sure how to react when told about a death that occurred decades ago.

Instead, Sherlock nodded. “That explains why you joined the army.”

“It does?” John’s relief is mixed in equal parts with confusion. “Wait, how did you even know I was an army doctor in the first place? How did you know about Afghanistan?”

“I didn’t know, I saw.” Sherlock had finished harvesting his roll’s chocolate, and was now tearing off large chunks and shoving them unceremoniously into his mouth. “Your haircut, the way you hold yourself says military. But your tote bag was from a medical conference, so Army doctor — obvious. Your face is tanned, but no tan above the wrists. You’ve been abroad, but not sunbathing. Where would an army doctor be exposed to the sun and wounded in action? Afghanistan or Iraq.”

“That’s amazing.” John looked at his own wrists, noticing the tan lines where the cuffs of his fatigues used to lie.

“That’s only scraping the surface. For example, I also know you’re drinking tea instead of coffee because your therapist told you that too much caffeine would aggravate your PTSD.” The expression on Sherlock’s face managed to combine self-satisfaction and wariness.

John knew he should be offended, angry, embarrassed that Sherlock not only knew about the PTSD but thought it was appropriate to bring up when they barely knew each other. Normally he would be. But for some reason all he felt was relief — relief that Sherlock didn’t feel the need to tiptoe around it, relief that at least in this moment he was merely broken, rather than broken and struggling to hide it.

“How did you know?”

Sherlock took a deep breath and then unleashed a torrent. “Your limp’s really bad when you walk but you don’t ask for a chair when you stand, like you’ve forgotten about it, so it’s at least partly psychosomatic. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic. It’s unlikely that you would experience a psychosomatic limp without other psychological sequelae as well. And you keep looking longingly at my coffee and wincing very slightly each time you take a sip from your own cup, which suggests that you would much rather be drinking coffee but for some reason are prohibiting yourself from it. You appear to be physically fit, your pulse is well within the normal range for a man of your age, so it’s likely to be a mental health reason rather than a physical one.” 

“That’s… extraordinary.” And invasive, and humiliating, but John couldn’t bring himself to feel annoyed. He replayed Sherlock’s last few sentences, and grinned salaciously. “So, I appear fit, do I?”

Sherlock gave him an evaluative look. “You’re an interesting man, John.”

“Me?” John had been called many things over the course of his life — stubborn, most commonly, and pugnacious and loyal, and on one memorable occasion, callipygian — but “interesting” was conspicuously missing from the repertoire. “I’m about as boring as they come.”

“No, you’re not. That’s what you want people to think. Don’t mistake having a boring life for being a boring person.”

“Oh, fantastic. So my _life_ is boring. That’s so much better.” Popping the last bite of brioche into his mouth, John crumpled up the paper bag and tossed it at a nearby bin.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “A boring life is a temporary problem. A boring _person_ is destined to be boring forever.”

John put both his elbows on the table and wrapped his hands around his cup. Leaning ever-so-slightly forward, he looked Sherlock directly in the eye. “And what do you propose we do to make my life less boring?”Sherlock licked his lower lip and opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted.

“Well hello, Mr. Holmes.” 

John looked up to see who was intruding, and did a double take. The woman was stunning, with blood red lips and her dark brown hair pinned up in an elaborate design. Her impeccably-fit dress appeared to be made out of origami, and the black cuffs on her wrists matched her knee-high boots with spiked heels. But what struck John the most was that she was staring at Sherlock as though he were a perfectly-cooked steak and she hadn’t eaten in a month.

Sherlock sighed. “Hello, Irene. How’s the flogging business going?”

The woman grinned lasciviously. “You know I’d love to show you firsthand, Sherlock.” John must have made some sort of noise because Irene suddenly turned her intense gaze to him. “And who is this?”

John cleared his throat. “I’m —“

“This is John Watson. _Doctor_ John Watson.”

“Hello, Dr. John Watson,” she purred. “I’m Irene Adler; I run the leather goods booth.” She pulled a business card out of her cleavage and handed it to him held between two manicured fingers. The background of the card was a glossy close-up of Irene’s immaculately-painted lips, her pearly teeth clenched around theshaft of a riding crop. The text read:

_THE WOMAN’s Leather Boutique_

_I Know What You Like_

“Very… interesting.” John held the card between his index finger and thumb, not knowing quite what to do with it.

Irene ran her gaze up and down John’s body. “You should stop by. I’m sure I have something that would tempt you.”

“Thanks, but I’m not really in the market for any leather goods.” John smiled politely. 

Irene stepped fractionally closer. “I wasn’t talking about leather goods.”

“Goodbye, Irene.” Sherlock was frowning at the two of them, clearly fed up with something.

“Oh, fine, Sherlock. You know where to come if you want to learn how to have fun.” Irene sauntered off, swinging her hips in a way that was not only clearly intentional but also somehow communicated that she _knew_ you knew it was intentional. 

As John watched her retreat, he wondered what to make of her apparent familiarity with Sherlock. He had to admit to himself that he was not a little jealous; on top of being beautiful enough to almost ( _almost_ ) measure up to Sherlock, she was able to hold her own in a conversation with him, while John was struggling just to stay afloat. John might not _be boring_ according to Sherlock, but next to Irene he felt old and small. Like… like a walnut.

“I should get back to my booth. People may be stooping to buying _flowers_ as hostess gifts.” Sherlock had stood up and was brushing brioche crumbs off his lap. He was alternating between looking at John with concern and avoiding eye contact altogether, which was frustrating after they had seemed to be making tentative steps toward one another. Why was he suddenly so uncomfortable? Was Irene an ex-girlfriend? A _current_ girlfriend? Was Sherlock worried that John would judge him? Or… was he ashamed to be seen with a crippled old man? 

As they began the walk back to Sherlock’s booth, John decided there was no point in not broaching the topic. “So, Irene. Do you, uh, have a history with her?”

Sherlock snorted. “You mean were we lovers? No, not really my area.”

“The flogging, or women?”

“Neither, really, though I’m more flexible on the former. Anyway, she’s mostly gay, she just wants what she can’t have.”

John nodded. “You.”

Sherlock looked slightly confused, which was a strange look on him. “While that is true in principle, I was referring to the fact that she was trying to pull you so hard she might have sprained a muscle.” 

John was taken aback. “ _Me_? Is _that_ what that was? It felt like being attacked by a very well-coiffed wolf!”

Sherlock’s concerned expression softened slightly. “I thought… maybe it had worked.” Was _that_ why he was upset? He had thought _John_ was interested in Irene? Was John being more subtle than he had thought? 

“Nah. I mean, she’s not bad to look at, but she’s not exactly my type.”

“The flogging, or women?”

“I’m not opposed to either, but I find I’m rather partial to tall, handsome dairy artists these days.”

“Scientist,” Sherlock corrected, but the last vestiges of concern on his face smoothed out and were replaced by a poorly suppressed smile. They arrived at his booth and he rolled the tent flap back up. He began absent-mindedly skimming his fingers across the various cheeses, glancing at John out of the corner of his eye.

“You know,” John said, “I’m not sure it counts as repaying you if I didn’t actually pay for anything.”

Sherlock turned to him and tilted his head in concession. “You make a fair point.”

“I think I need to take you somewhere where you _haven’t_ endeared yourself to the owner and earned a lifetime supply of, I don’t know, sausage rolls.”

Sherlock smirked. “That should be easy enough. I’m not a very endearing person. But if this is your way of saying that you want free sausage rolls, I can see what I can do.” John was trying to think of _subtle_ innuendo involving sausage rolls when Sherlock handed him a slip of paper with a phone number and an address scrawled on it. “You should come visit my workshop. You can see what I do firsthand.”

John grabbed the slip of paper so quickly he was lucky he didn’t give Sherlock a nasty paper cut. “I’d love to. When?”

“Tomorrow?” Sherlock looked uncertain. “Is that… too soon?”

“Tomorrow sounds perfect. Eleven?”

The uncertainty faded into relief. “Eleven.” 

“Okay then.”

“Yes.”

“I should get going.” 

“Yes.”

“So I’ll just… do that then.”

“John.”

“Yeah?”

Sherlock leaned forward and very, very gently — so gently that John could have missed it if Sherlock’s proximity hadn’t heightened all of his senses to nearly superhuman levels — kissed his cheek. It was almost painfully sweet, and as Sherlock retreated John felt his heart stutter and then begin beating double-time. 

John felt like a teenager, unable to do anything except grin stupidly at Sherlock, growing progressively more and more flushed. Thankfully, Sherlock was grinning and blushing right back.

“Excuse me, are you open?”

Sherlock wheeled around and glared at the man who had approached him. “It depends.”

“I’m going to a woman’s flat tonight for dinner and I need to bring something.”

“You could bring her flowers!” A bearded man in the florist booth next to Sherlock’s stall — The Empty Vase — was brandishing a bouquet hopefully.

“Shut up, Anderson,” Sherlock barked over his shoulder. Then, to the man: “You’ve come to the right place. I can provide you with cheese so sublime that she may even be willing to overlook your secret divorce and your gambling problem.”

“You — _what?_ ” The man looked alarmed, but Sherlock was already leaping back over his counter and retrieving his apron. As he tied it behind his back, he met John’s eyes and shot him one last sly smile, before turning to his customer and slipping into deduction mode.

As for John, he bought a blueberry scone from Greg and walked home swinging the bag and whistling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may be able to tell, there will be no angst in this story. And basically no tension. Just two silly boys blushing and smiling and getting together and talking about cheese.
> 
> (Also, no porn. Not even porn involving cheese.)
> 
> Next chapter: I think we’ll meet Mycroft! Maybe I’ll try to work Jim Moriarty in!


	3. A Brief Textual Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :-P –SH

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little something that popped into my head. Progress on the next real chapter is going slowly.

**hi this is john watson from the farmers market. we still on for eleven tomorrow?**

 

_Yes. Why wouldn’t we be? –SH_

 

**i don’t know, maybe you had second thoughts about giving your phone number and address to a stranger?**

 

_Nobody is a stranger to me, surely you’ve learned that by now. –SH_

 

_And if anyone were to have second thoughts, it would make much more sense for it to be you. –SH_

 

**well i haven’t. why would I have second thoughts?**

 

_I’ve been told I am a difficult man to get along with. –SH_

 

**i find you pretty easy**

 

**shit hit send too soon!!**

 

**i find you pretty easy to get along with**

 

_I would imagine you find most people easy to get along with. –SH_

 

**you’d be surprised.**

 

_It takes a lot to surprise me. –SH_

 

**i’ll see what i can do then. ;-)**

 

_Really, John? Emoticons? –SH_

 

**they’re useful expressive tools!**

 

_…If you’re a fourteen-year-old girl. –SH_

 

**shut up. you’re the one who winked at me first.**

 

_:-P –SH_

 

**hypocrite!!**

 

**why do you sign all your texts?**

 

_So that my interlocutors can tell whether I’m truly me or whether I have been replaced by an impostor. –SH_

 

**is that something that happens a lot?**

 

_I have my enemies. –SH_

 

**you’ll have to tell me more about your enemies tomorrow. i’m pretty good at handling enemies.**

 

_Yes, I’d wager you are. –SH_

 

**see you at eleven then?**

 

_Until then. –SH_


	4. On the way to Baker Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John meets a strange man on his way to Sherlock's workshop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was going to be longer, but I reached a stopping point with the first section and decided to just go ahead and post it as its own chapter.
> 
> After this, one more chapter and an epilogue!

After their brief but encouraging text conversation the previous night, John was feeling even more optimistic about meeting Sherlock at his workshop. He set out early; he couldn’t bear to spend another second in his depressing flat when the prospect of seeing Sherlock again was on the horizon.

It was a warm day and he had some nervous energy to burn off, so instead of transferring at King’s Cross, he decided to leave the tube station and walk the rest of the way. He cut through Regents Park, absently watching children kicking footballs around and running back and forth to the nearby kerb, where several ice cream vans were taking advantage of the springtime heat wave. As he walked, he let his mind meander through the question of what, exactly, he was doing here, and whether he was out of his mind.

Sherlock made him feel _alive_ somehow, in a way that he hadn’t felt since… well, since basic training, to be completely honest. And then it had been the feeling of pushing his body to its limits, of going to bed at night knowing that he had done as much as he could — without, of course, the prospect of death (his own or someone else’s) lurking behind every dusty hill. Before that it had been medical school: the late nights studying, the relentless hours on rotation, the split-second decisions. John Watson was not someone who lived by halves, yet since he had been invalided home, that was precisely what he had been doing. Even his bloody legs only half-worked. 

But in Sherlock he felt like he had found a kindred spirit. In many ways they were complete opposites, but he could see the same barely-contained energy simmering in Sherlock’s eyes, the same frustration with the world. Maybe it was stupid to put so much stock in someone he technically didn’t know very well. Hell, until yesterday he hadn’t even been sure that he occupied _any_ space in Sherlock’s no doubt massive brain. But then he had not only remembered John but seemed happy to see him, and from what Greg and Mrs. Hudson had implied that wasn’t something to be taken lightly. He was pretty sure that he recognized in Sherlock the same tentative yet solid interest, though what it was about him that could inspire that kind of interest in someone like Sherlock he had no idea. 

God, he was like a teenager with a crush. John smiled to himself and shook his head ruefully as he crossed a street. Except he wasn’t a teenager, and he hadn’t had a “crush” in decades. He could vaguely remember being 15, the fickleness of his affections: pining after Maria one week and Joanna the next (and Joanna’s brother, Frank, the week after that), flitting from one infatuation to another, each one feeling as deep and as consuming as an ocean but then, as quickly as they had arrived, evaporating into sea-salt stickiness. 

This was different, and not just because he was in his forties and thought he’d left infatuation behind when he’d begun shaving daily. He was giddy, it was true, but it wasn’t the desperate giddiness of a lovestruck sixth-former; there was a strange calmness to it, a sense of inevitability. Somehow it felt like he and Sherlock had all the time in the world, though he didn’t want to waste any more of it than necessary. So that’s what he was doing. He was going to be with Sherlock, in whatever capacity he could.

By the time he came to this conclusion, he was a few blocks from his destination. He cleared his head and focused his attention on the street. Best to be at the top of his game and not spiraling off into fantasy, if he wanted to be able to keep up with Sherlock. 

Strange — John could swear that he had seen this same ice cream van on several other corners already. The slightly-off portraits of Alvin, one of his two chipmunk brothers, and (inexplicably) Snow White were rather memorable. As he was standing there side-eyeing the van, the window suddenly slid open. A man stuck his head out. “Get into the van, Doctor Watson.”

“Sorry? Do I know you?”

“We have a mutual acquaintance. Now, get in the van.” The window slid shut again and, a few seconds later, the van door popped open, revealing a strip of darkness.

John regretted having left his gun at home. He had thought it unnecessary — and probably poor etiquette — to show up to Sherlock’s workshop with a firearm tucked into his trousers. Shrugging his shoulders, he climbed into the van and pulled the door shut behind him.

Inside, the van was dimly lit but well-appointed, particularly for an ice cream van. The walls were covered in a rich damask wallpaper, and heavy curtains covered the van’s few windows. The only light was what came through the windshield; squinting toward it, John noticed a polished-looking woman in a suit sitting behind the steering wheel, tapping away at a Blackberry and seemingly ignoring the both of them.

The man who had “invited” him in was standing tall in the center of the space, the top of his head just brushing the roof of the van. He was difficult to read; the bow tie seemed appropriate for an ice cream man, but the three-piece suit was less in character.

“Have a seat, John.” The man gestured to a leather sofa that was rather implausibly tucked into a corner.

John wasn’t exactly inclined to cooperate. He ignored the sofa and tightened his grip on his cane. “You know, this is a rather strange way to sell ice lollies.” 

The man gave an insincere smile that practically radiated _We are not amused_. “When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discreet, hence this vehicle.” His expression changed from insincere amusement to sincere threat. “The leg must be hurting you. Sit down.”

John continued to hold his chin up, gazing at the man defiantly. “I don’t want to sit down. And how is an ice cream van ‘discreet’?” 

“Hiding in plain sight, of course. As you should be aware, the bustling streets of London require a different sort of camouflage than do the barren deserts of Afghanistan.” The man brushed an invisible piece of lint off his lapel. “What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?”

“I don’t have one. I barely know him. I met him a week ago.” Was it really only a week ago? John had spent only a handful of hours in Sherlock’s presence, yet he already felt like he somehow _knew_ him. Better than he knew most people, at least. And while Sherlock certainly didn’t know John any better than he knew other people — Sherlock seemed to know everything about everyone — he probably knew John better than most other people knew John. 

The man raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Mmm, and since then you’ve had coffee with him and exchanged a dozen texts, and now you’re visiting his mad laboratory. People do _not_ visit Sherlock’s laboratory.”

“He invited me.”

“That is precisely my point.” The man gave him a look as if to say _We both know what’s going on here_. Unfortunately, John didn’t.

“Who _are_ you?”

“An interested party,” the man answered vaguely.

 _“_ Interested? In what, exactly?” John’s phone trilled in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out and glanced at the screen — he had received a text message.

_Baker Street. Bring a baguette, if convenient. –SH_

“I hope I’m not distracting you.” The man tapped his umbrella against the floor impatiently. 

John gave his phone one more glance before slipping it back into his pocket. “Not distracting me at all,” he replied, returning the man’s insincere smile.

“Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?”

John scowled. “I could be wrong… but I think that’s none of your business.”

“It _could_ be.”

“It really couldn’t.”

The man examined his nails, continuing to ignore John while simultaneously talking to him. “If you _do_ continue your association, I’d be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to ease your way.”

John looked at him  blankly. “Why?”

“Because you’re not a wealthy man.”

“In exchange for what?” John was beginning to get frustrated. 

“Information. Nothing indiscreet. Nothing you’d feel… uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he’s up to.”

“Why? Is this some kind of corporate espionage?”

The man sneered, managing to look even more condescending than he already had. “Oh, no, nothing like that. Sherlock Holmes’s little ‘business’ is hardly important enough to have secrets worth stealing. I merely worry about him. Constantly.”

John’s phone trilled another arriving text. Checking it, he read:

_If inconvenient, bring a baguette anyway. –SH_

He pocketed the phone and squared his shoulders. “No,” he told the man.

A small wince — of annoyance? surprise? — flickered across the man’s features. “But I haven’t mentioned a figure.”

“Don’t bother.”

The man laughed in disbelief. “You’re very loyal, _very_ quickly.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just not interested.” John’s phone trilled a third time, but he ignored it in favor of meeting the man’s intense gaze, throwing all 170cm of Captain Watson into his responding glare. 

After several moments of very loud silence, the man averted his eyes, straightening his already-straight jacket. “Very well, Doctor Watson. I can see you’ve chosen your side.” He began to reach out; John stiffened in anticipation, but the man only reached past him and pulled the handle on the van door. John stepped aside, allowing him to pass. As he stepped out into the light, he turned around and met John’s eyes once more. “My assistant will drop you off where you need to go. Do be careful.” The door slammed, plunging the van into semi-darkness once again.

“Where to?” The woman in the driver’s seat was now looking at John with complete disinterest, as though her employer _hadn’t_ just been threatening him. Maybe this was something that happened every day? 

John checked his phone for the latest text.

_Could be delicious. –SH_

He smiled and returned the phone to his jacket. “221 Baker Street. But I need to stop somewhere first. Do you know of a good bakery in the area?”


	5. At Baker Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And Sherlock did. And John did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent my New Year's Day writing so that I could post this chapter! Hooray!
> 
> And finally we get to the kissing, which I put off for as long as possible because I didn't have the slightest clue of how to write it. (One of several reasons why there would never, ever be porn in this story. I can't even deal with lips touching lips.)
> 
> Once again, not Brit-picked, would welcome Brit-picking if anyone feels up to the task.

John still felt slightly shaken when he arrived at 221 Baker Street. Nevertheless, he was eager to see Sherlock, and he didn’t want to start off on a negative foot, so he resolved to wait before bringing up his strange abduction. He let out a long breath, unfurrowed his brow, and knocked on the door.

Almost immediately, he heard the muffled thumping of someone running down a flight of stairs, and moments later the door was flung open by an out of breath Sherlock. At the sight of him, the knot of tension in John’s chest began to uncoil. Sherlock’s shirtsleeves were rolled up under his apron, and his hair was being held back by an alice band that was struggling valiantly to fulfill its task. John resisted the urge to reach up and tuck a few wayward curls back in place, though his hands twitched with the temptation.

“Come in!” Sherlock stood back and ushered John into the hallway. “You’re exactly on time.” 

“Yeah, well. You can take the man out of the army…” John trailed off. Sherlock shut the front door and began herding John down the hallway. John remembered the loaf of bread he’d been carrying around like a French cartoon character, and held it out.

“Ah!” Sherlock grabbed the baguette by an end and began slicing it through the air like an epee, narrowly avoiding knocking over a milk bottle on a side table. “This will do nicely for— John? Are you all right? Did the bread bring up traumatic memories?” Sherlock abandoned his fencing practice and was peering intently at John.

John let out a breath. Apparently his poker face wasn’t quite as good as he had hoped. “I’m fine. It’s nothing. I just… I was just kidnapped by an ice cream man.”

Sherlock’s look of concern quickly morphed into irritation. “Of course you were. I suppose he offered you money to spy on me?”

John was somewhat surprised by Sherlock’s lackadaisical response. “Yes…?”

“Did you take it?”

“Of course not!” John huffed, offended.

“Pity, we could have split the fee. Think it through next time.” The corner of Sherlock’s mouth quirked upward as he looked at John out of the corner of his eyes.

John chuckled. “So you know this bloke?”

“I believe so. Was he irritatingly self-impressed and grossly obese?”

“He didn’t look fat.”

“Then you weren’t looking clearly enough. That was my brother.”

“Your _brother_?” John felt like he must have missed something crucial in this conversation.

“Unfortunately. He’s never been able to keep his enormous nose out of my business. And I mean ‘business’ both literally and figuratively.”

“Oh, right. You said your family works in the dairy industry?”

“Mycroft _is_ the British dairy industry. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to obtain milk that hasn’t passed through his grubby little fingers?” A disgusted look must have passed over John’s face, because Sherlock rolled his eyes. “ _Metaphorically_ , John. Anyway, enough about my fat, overbearing brother. I’ll show you around.” Sherlock placed the baguette at the foot of the stairs and strode toward the open doorway.

 

***

 

Sherlock led John through the doorway into a brightly-lit room. “This, obviously, is where I do most of the hands-on work. Heating the milk, coagulation, straining, molding, pressing. It’s also where I conduct my experiments.”

John gaped. Though from the outside the building looked like a typical walk-up flat, on the ground floor at least the internal walls had been knocked down, yielding a large open space. Well, it would have been open space, if it hadn’t been filled with… with.. _spaceship stuff_ , John’s brain helpfully supplied.

It didn’t look like a factory. It didn’t even look like a kitchen — Sherlock’s brother had been right, it looked like a mad scientist’s laboratory, full of gleaming metal and glass. Large copper and steel vats occupied most of the floor space. Various expensive-looking machines — the only one John could identify was a centrifuge — dotted the room, perched on counters and on each other. 

One wall was hung with all manner of molds: countless cylinders of all sizes, but also rectangles, domes, polygons, and even a few hearts. A large shelf supported a stack of wooden frames stretched with mesh of varying grades. Hidden amongst the clutter was a steel door, presumably leading to a walk-in cooler. 

Another wall held a series of enormous gas burners and induction cooktops, with steel ventilation hoods mounted higher up. Above John’s head, a pole running horizontally between opposite walls was hung with large, bizarre-looking tools — messy tangles of wood and wire — that John assumed were for cheese-making but could just as easily be instruments of torture. 

Along the third wall there ran a bench with several industrial and a mess of chemistry glassware. What looked like a couple dozen beakers were set up in a precise array; each was filled with a clumpy mixture of yellow liquid and white gloop. A clipboard covered in scribbled notes lay on the table next to them. Sherlock saw John looking at them curiously. “I’m in the middle of an experiment measuring the coagulation of four different types of rennet, crossed with five varieties of milk.” He gestured toward the doorway that he and John had just come through, and when John turned to look he saw that that wall was blanketed in pieces of paper bearing Sherlock’s trademark scrawl (which John did _not_ recognize due to all the time he’d spent staring at the card with Sherlock’s number and address on it, absolutely not). At this distance, he couldn’t make out much, but he could see chemical diagrams and equations, massive spreadsheets filled in with data, and a few drawings of farm animals. 

“Wow. This is… wow.” John continued to survey the room with his jaw hanging open. 

Sherlock put his hand on John’s elbow. “Basement, next.” John followed him back to the hallway, then down a dim, musty stairwell. Sherlock flipped a switch and a light came on, illuminating a small vestibule with four heavy steel doors set into the walls. 

It was cooler down here, and rather clammy. “These are the aging rooms. There are four different rooms, each held at a specific temperature and relative humidity. Different cheeses age for different amounts of time in different settings. I keep meticulous track of their progress and rotate them on a regular basis.” 

John squinted at a sticky note stuck to one of the doors. “What’s a… ‘bluing room’? I’m assuming you’re not rust-proofing guns in there?”

“That’s where the blue cheeses ripen. They get a separate room so that the mold doesn’t spread.”

John stood back and marveled at the view. “This is all quite impressive. I never would have guessed that all this could be inside this building.”

Sherlock nodded. “It’s a bit of a tight fit, but I wanted to be in central London. There’s no point in living anywhere else.”

“D’you live nearby, then?”

“Very nearby. My flat is the first and second storeys. I’ll show you.” Sherlock trotted up the two flights of stairs, grabbing the baguette on the way, and John hobbled after him.

 

***

 

Unlike the gleaming sci-fi of the lab, Sherlock’s apartment was warm and welcoming, filled with plush furniture and antique textiles. It was equally cluttered, but instead of pots and pans and unidentifiable machinery, it was filled with books and an eclectic collection of knick-knacks; at his initial survey, John noticed a cow skull, a collection of beetles, and some vintage medical diagrams, but there were scores of other objects littering the walls and tables.

“This is very nice,” John remarked, running his fingers across the mantle towards — was that a _human skull_?

“Thank you. When I’m not constrained by sanitation laws, I can be a bit… messy.”

“I like messy. I mean, not really, but I’ve never lived anywhere long enough to even _make_ a mess, you know?”

 “Mm.” After a pause, Sherlock clapped his hands together sharply. “Anyway, we have work to do. Chop chop.”

“We do?” John followed Sherlock into his personal kitchen, which was much less state-of-the-art but equally covered in scraps of paper. An old microscope sat on the counter, surrounded by stacks of empty slides and petri dishes.

“I’m going to show you how to make an extremely simple goat’s milk ricotta.” John made a skeptical face. “Trust me, I was doing this with my grandmother when I was a toddler. Even you can manage this.”

Sherlock pulled a stock pot out of the refrigerator. “This is the whey left over from a batch of gouda that I made the other day. If we heat it up enough we’ll be able to get more curds from it. _Ricotta_ actually means re-cooked.” 

He placed the pot onto a burner and clipped a thermometer to the inside. He fiddled with a knob and the flame under the pot came to life with a satisfying _hoomph_. “We need to heat it until it’s nearly boiling, and then you’ll add the acid and strain out the curds.” He tossed a bundle of loosely-woven white fabric to John. “Here. Line the sieve with this. It’s cheesecloth; it’ll separate the curds from the whey.”

“Huh, so that’s why it’s called cheesecloth?” John brought the cloth to the sink and laid it out in the sieve as evenly as he could.

“Obviously.” Sherlock leaned back against a counter and crossed his arms. “Now we wait for the whey to reach the right temperature.”

John mirrored Sherlock’s pose. Since they appeared to have some time to kill, he asked, “So, why did you decide to become a cheese maker?”

Sherlock hummed. “I read chemistry in uni. I enjoyed the precision and systematicity of the science, but I wanted to _create_ something. I wanted to be able to see and smell and touch and taste the results of my experiments. Cheesemaking is a challenge because so many elements of it are difficult to control — difficult, but not _impossible_. It keeps me occupied. It holds my interest. Few things do.”

“And your family was already working in the dairy industry.”

“Technically, yes, although the work that they do is so far removed from the actual process that they might as well be crunching numbers on soya farming or steel manufacturing.”

“And your brother disapproves of you for not following suit?”

“Mycroft can’t _stand_ the fact that I went small. Apparently I should be running a factory, turning ultra-pasteurized milk into flavorless blocks of cheddar that schoolchildren might as well use to rub out the errors on their maths homework. He’s always trying to get me to work for him, but I have no desire to be one of his minions.”

“So, your brother — he’s the enemy you were talking about? Last night?”

Sherlock shrugged. “One of them. It may not surprise you to hear that I don’t exactly make friends wherever I go. There’s a professor of nutrition at Oxford who has devoted his career to ‘proving’ that humans shouldn’t ingest dairy products. I’ve had several long-running debates with Professor Moriarty in the pages of _The British Journal of Dietary Science._ I’m certain he’s in the pocket of the almond milk industry; I just haven’t been able to prove it yet.”

“I didn’t realize cheese making was such a controversial issue.”

“Yes, well. When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield. Though I suppose in your case that happens even when you don’t walk with me.”

John huffed a laugh. “True.” A thought occurred to him. “What did you mean yesterday when you said that my father dying ‘explained’ why I joined the army?”

“Well, you asked me why I became a cheese maker. Let me ask you the same question, John: Why did you become a doctor?”

“Oh, you know. I’ve always wanted to help people.”

“That’s not why.”

John started. Sherlock was squinting at him. “Sorry?”

Sherlock waved his hand through the air and turned his back to John, peering at the thermometer through the sheets of steam rising from the pot. He straightened up and strode to the refrigerator, talking to John over his shoulder. “All right, now it’s time to add the curdling agent. Typically I use rennet, but because we’re just making a simple ricotta we’ll use vinegar.” Returning, Sherlock handed a small bottle of white vinegar to John. “Pour some in and stir.”

John decided he could return to the main topic of discussion later, after the time-sensitive task of cheese-making had been completed. “How much do I add?”

“It doesn’t take much. You’ll see it start to curdle.”

“You’re not going to tell me the amount to the nearest tenth of a milliliter? I thought cheese-making was a _science_ ,” John teased.

“Well, yes. Normally I’m very precise about these things, but this is barely even cheese-making. One can afford to improvise a little. Go ahead.”

John began to drizzle in the vinegar while swirling the large wooden spoon around. Almost immediately he saw the change: first the glossy white surface began to appear grainy, and soon he could see a thick layer of very fine curds parting around the spoon, revealing a clear liquid underneath. “Wow, look at that!”

“Yes, it looks ready.” Sherlock handed him a pair of potholders and gestured toward the stove. “Now take the pot and pour the contents into the strainer.”

John donned the potholders, grabbed the pot with both hands, and heaved it over to the sink. Hot, humid, slightly-sour air bathed his face, although he kept his head back out of the worst of the steam. “Slowly,” Sherlock cautioned, as John began to tip the pot over. 

The liquid filtered through the cloth, leaving behind a sieve full of fine curds.

“Gather up the cloth and squeeze out as much moisture as you can,” Sherlock instructed. John did, feeling the warm whey dribble through his fingers. “Now put the cheese in that bowl.” John opened up the cloth again and flipped the litre or so of cheese into the metal bowl next to him on the counter.

“Now what?” he asked, rinsing his hands off and patting them dry on his trousers.

“Now we eat. Grab the baguette and follow me.”

 

***

 

Sherlock deposited John on the sofa, moving aside a haphazard pile of what appeared to be dot matrix printouts in order to make space. He disappeared back into the kitchen and, after some clattering noises, emerged a minute later carrying a cutting board, a knife, and two jars. “Graham gave me this bacon jam the other day in exchange for a wheel of brie. I think he’s trying out some new savory pastries. And I’ve got some of my honey as well.”

He laid the various components out on the coffee table and sat next to John on the sofa. Under his guidance, John cut off a chunk of bread, slathered it in warm ricotta, and then heaped a spoonful of the bacon jam on top of that. He bit into the creation carefully, holding a hand underneath to catch the crumbs.

It was _blissful_. The sweet-tart-saltiness of the bacon jam, the creamy heaviness of the ricotta, the yeasty chew of the fresh baguette — John’s eyes rolled back in his head as he moaned around the bite. “Christ, that’s good.” Sherlock quirked a smile and tore into his own piece. John continued taking bites of his bread and moaning with pleasure until he had finished the entire slice. “I can’t believe we made this! I feel so accomplished.”

For a few minutes they focused on the spread in front of them, the only noises the clinking of spoons against jars and the sawing of knife through bread. Sherlock seemed to favor the honey. John was already trying to figure out what he could barter in exchange for Greg’s entire supply of bacon jam.

After his initial urge to shovel as much food into his mouth as he could as quickly as possible faded into a more reasonable hunger, John sat back and cleared his throat. “So. What did you mean, before?”

Sherlock finished chewing his mouthful of food and swallowed. He was working through the spread at a slightly more reasonable pace. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“You know. When you said I didn’t become a doctor to help people.”

“Ah. Well, it’s a lovely answer, but it’s not the reason you became a doctor.”

“It isn’t?”

“Nope,” Sherlock replied, popping the “p.” “It’s true that you help people. And it’s what people expect to hear. But _you_ became a doctor because you wanted your decisions to matter. And are any decisions more life-or-death than those of a doctor?”

John was momentarily stunned into silence. “Is that why— What does that have to do with my father?”

“Your father died in an accident, no?”

John bit the inside of his lip. “Yeah. Car crash. He was drunk.”

“He died in the hospital?”

“The doctors missed the internal bleeding. They didn’t realize until it was too late.”

“And suddenly the life-or-death decisions that you’d have to make as a trauma surgeon didn’t seem quite so appealing. So you raised the stakes even more and joined the army.”

After a minute of silently opening and closing his mouth like a fish, John finally managed to speak. “That was… incredible.”

“Really?”

“Yes! And humiliating, but mostly incredible. You’re completely right, but even I had no idea until you just told me.”

“There’s nothing to be humiliated about. Most people become doctors for the money, and become soldiers out of some ill-guided blind patriotism. Your reasons are no worse than that, and arguably much more admirable.”

John shrugged. It was strange to see his innermost desires — ones he hadn’t even acknowledged to himself, ones he wasn’t necessarily proud of — spread out in front of him like that. But there was also something reassuring and invigorating and just plain calming about being _seen_ with such clarity. John felt laid bare, and for the first time he didn’t feel the urge to cover himself up.

He smiled, surprising Sherlock (if his stunned look was anything to go by). “So, now that you’ve plumbed the depths of my psyche, why don’t you tell me something about yourself?”

And Sherlock did. And John did.

Sherlock talked about the mischief he made as a child, delightedly recounting the time Mycroft’s eyebrows got burnt off and telling the story of how he made four separate nannies quit.

John talked about his awkward teenage years, about discovering his first girlfriend making out with Harry, and then how Harry had accused him of copying her when he came out to her as bisexual.

Sherlock talked about the mistakes he had made when he first learned about cheese making, including the time he mistook sugar for salt and accidentally candied a batch of gouda.

John talked about medical school, about the exhilaration and exhaustion of rounds, about the time he was so sleep-deprived that he fell asleep standing up in a lift on the way from the third floor to the fifth.

Sherlock talked about the loneliness of being not just the smartest kid in the room but the _unapologetically_ smartest kid in the room. He talked about uni, about the frustration and isolation that led him to his first attempt at “applied chemistry,” an attempt that ultimately turned out to be dangerous and alluring and all-consuming.

John talked about the war, about the punctuation of long stretches of absolute, mind-numbing boredom with sudden bursts of adrenaline and gunfire, about the loss of some friends and the saving of others, about how sand got absolutely _everywhere_ in the desert, including his pants, including the gaping hole in his shoulder as he lay bleeding out on the ground.

When the last bit of bread had scraped up the last bit of ricotta and the sun was casting long shadows across the sitting room, silence fell over John and Sherlock. It was a companionable silence, but at the same time an anticipatory one. John was simultaneously buzzing with energy and lax with exhaustion; he felt as though he had been exorcised. They were still sitting on the couch, but they had their feet up on the coffee table and their heads were lolling back against the headrest, turned toward one another. John grinned at Sherlock and Sherlock smiled back, a swipe of honey glistening at the corner of his mouth.

“You have a bit of—“ John touched his finger to the corner of his own mouth, miming wiping something away. 

Sherlock’s gaze, which had followed John’s finger, appeared to catch on John’s mouth. Slowly, the tip of Sherlock’s tongue emerged from between his plush lips, curling around to the side and leaving a glossy trail in its wake.

“Other side,” John managed to croak, riveted by the sight.

The tongue meandered to the other side of Sherlock’s mouth, grazing that absurd cupid’s bow on the way.

“Better?”

“You still…” John swallowed. “I can…” He found his body leaning toward Sherlock’s of its own volition, as a moth drawn to a flame. Sherlock held perfectly still, his eyes still glued to John’s mouth, his pupils blown wide.

Slowly, slowly, John brought his lips to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth, his gaze darting between his target and Sherlock’s eyes, making sure that what he was about to do was welcome. Sherlock continued to sit silently and rigidly, but the expression on his face was dumbstruck rather than appalled, so John let his instincts take over. As his lips grazed Sherlock’s skin, he flicked his tongue out, tasting the sweetness of the honey. Pressing his lips more firmly, he sucked gently at the patch of skin, laving the last traces of stickiness off with his tongue. He broke the suction with a small smacking noise and leaned his forehead against Sherlock’s temple, breathing heavily against his cheek. The warmth from that sole point of contact radiated through John’s body, and he waited to see what would happen.

Suddenly, with a stuttered intake of breath, Sherlock came to life — turning his head to catch John’s mouth fully with his own, bringing his arms up to grip John’s shoulders tightly. John’s hands went immediately to Sherlock’s hair, tugging Sherlock’s lips even more tightly against his own. 

 

***

 

They kissed for what could have been five minutes or two hours. The sun set and the sitting room became dark. Eventually, Sherlock pulled away and turned on the lamp on the side table. His lips were kiss-swollen, even plusher than usual, and the skin around his mouth was red with stubble burn. His hair was a riot of curls; somehow, his alice band had wound up dangling from John’s right bicep. John was sure he looked equally disheveled; he could feel his own face tingling from Sherlock’s stubble, and when he looked down he discovered that his shirt was half untucked. 

Through his daze, Sherlock was eyeing him nervously. “John, I… have a proposition for you.”

“Yes?” John smiled at him in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

“Would you like to… that is, would you care to… I would very much like it if—“

“Whatever you want, Sherlock, I’m sure I want it too.” 

“—if you would be my cheese namer.”

“Of cou— wait, your what?”

Sherlock straightened in his seat. “It has come to my attention that, because most people are completely irrational, quality products don’t always speak for themselves. I have neither the time nor the inclination to waste on interfacing with the public, whereas you appear to have a knack for it. I’d like you to deal with the ‘creative’ side of things, while I deal with the science.” John blinked as Sherlock continued. “You would, of course, receive a cut of the profits, as a business partner. It’s not much, but between that and your army pension it should be enough to live on.”

John took a moment to think over this unexpected offer, and then thought, _why the hell not_. “…Sure, I’d be happy to do that.”

“Excellent.” Sherlock looked relieved.

“So. Is that your only proposition for me?”

Sherlock blushed and looked at the floor. “John… the work comes first.” He looked pained, both at the prospect of holding back and at this moment of necessary emotional honesty. “I need you to be sure. Are you sure? I’m a difficult man to get along with.”

“So am I.”

“I like to play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t speak for days on end.”

“I have anger issues and an unlicensed firearm. And I’m sure.”

“But how can you be sure?”

“You’re brilliant and gorgeous and astonishing. I can’t believe you’re real. How can _you_ be sure?”

“Most people I figure out within twenty seconds, but I haven’t figured you out yet. I think I might never figure you out.” A look of wonder crossed Sherlock’s face, though it was quickly replaced by a smirk. “And you’ve got a nice arse, too.”

“Jesus, if we’re talking about arses…” John reached out and pinched Sherlock’s bum, causing him to let out an honest-to-goodness _giggle_. That, of course, led to more pinching, which led to more kissing, which led to things that John was far too much of a gentleman to talk about.

Eventually, John headed back to his bedsit, but only after making plans to meet again the next day. He strolled to the tube station feeling like his body had been filled with helium. It had been a good day, but unlike most good days he wasn’t sad that it was ending; he knew it was only the beginning of a very long string of good days ahead.

As he emerged from the station near his flat, his phone pinged with a message. Grinning, he flipped the phone open to read it.

 _You left something here. —SH_ _[Image attached]_

John opened the accompanying image and nearly dropped his phone when he saw a photo of his cane, hanging over the back of a kitchen chair, where he had left it in order to grab a pot with both hands.

John had made a lot of important decisions in his life, but he was pretty sure today he’d made the best one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, a little epilogue set six months later.


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, not getting involved.” Greg held his palms up defensively. “Far be it from me to interfere with whatever crazy system you have working for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is, the final installment of the story! I wasn't expecting to finish it so soon but it turned out to be the chapter that was the most fun to write (banter! silly jokes!). Happy endings ahoy, to the surprise of absolutely no one.

_**Sixth months later** _

Greg settled into his folding chair, pulling his scarf up around his chin. The September air had a bite in it, but that was good for the baked goods business; the fall weather awakened in people a primal urge to load up on carbs, padding themselves for the coming winter. He’d already introduced four new pumpkin pastries to his lineup, and they’d all been a big hit. The market hadn’t opened yet — vendors were still setting up around him, Molly writing out her chalkboard inventory and Anderson carefully arranging his flowers — but he liked to arrive a bit early, pick up a steaming hot cuppa from Mrs. Hudson, and enjoy the silence before everyone started to trickle in.

Speaking of which — Greg heard two sets of footsteps and a pair of familiar voices.

“— I’m not going to facilitate moral weakness in the populace.”

“Sherlock, how many times do I have to tell you lactose intolerance is an actual medical condition? It’s not just a lack of will.”

“Hullo, boys!” Greg waved as John and Sherlock arrived at the neighboring stall, several large coolers and rolled up tent in tow.

Sherlock muttered what could have been a greeting, but John smiled and shook Greg’s hand. “Hey there! A little nippy today, eh?”

“A bit, but I like it. How was your week?”

“Well, this one” — John gestured with his thumb to Sherlock, who was setting up their tent — “decided to fill our bathtub with sour sheep’s milk. So that was an interesting Wednesday.”

Sherlock huffed. “The bathtub is well-insulated, John! I needed to maintain a relatively constant temperature.”

“It isn’t sanitary.”

“I cleaned it out afterwards, and besides, you’re not going to get sick from fermented milk.”

“I didn’t mean unsanitary for _bathing_ , Sherlock, I meant unsanitary for the cheese!”

“I sterilized the bathtub first! You think I wouldn’t, after what we did in there last weekend?”

John’s face turned bright red and he shot an embarrassed glance at Greg. Greg was used to it at this point, though, so he just shrugged and grinned. “Hey, no judgment here, mate. Though I might avoid whatever cheese you were making in the bath.”

“It was the Greek Interpreter,” Sherlock said sulkily, extending a tent pole.

“It’s this new Feta-Wensleydale hybrid that Sherlock’s been working on,” John added. “It’s really nice; Sherlock thinks it should be ready for the public in a couple of weeks.” 

“Quit talking to Glenn and help me set up the booth. I know you’re not tall enough to help with the tent, but you could unpack the cheeses.”

“Oi, you _know_ his name is Greg. And you can quit acting like I’m some sort of dwarf.” John rolled his eyes, but he nodded to Greg and went to help Sherlock. Sherlock smiled at John’s back as he grabbed a folding table and began opening it up.

And that just summed it up, didn’t it? To the casual observer, Sherlock and John seemed to be constantly at each other’s throats (in the argument sense, although Greg had seen enough hickeys to conclude that they were constantly at each other’s throats in other senses as well), but anyone who knew them could see that beneath the good-natured griping they were not just absurdly in love but almost defiantly loyal to one another.

John was no longer the nervous, withdrawn man whom Greg had first met in March; now he was practically vibrant, joking and teasing and giving back as good as he got when parrying Sherlock’s verbal jabs. Sherlock, on the other hand, had lost some of his prickliness and was willing — within reason — to laugh at himself, provided John was nearby. Greg could see that they made a good business team, as well: John dealt with most of the customer service, talking to (and occasionally flirting with) customers, telling them about the wares, and “translating” Sherlock’s answers when someone asked a technical question. Sherlock, freed of the need to interact with people, was able to stand back and observe, making mental notes of what people liked and didn’t like, wanted and didn’t want, and applying those observations back in his lab. The Art and Science of Turophilia had developed a bit of a following at this and a few other farmer’s markets throughout the city; they’d even had a write-up in _Time Out London_ a month back. John mentioned last week that business had been so good, they were considering renting the empty storefront next to their flat and opening up a permanent shop. 

The market officially opened and customers started to arrive, thrusting Greg out of his romantic thoughts and back into real life. It was a hectic morning; Greg barely had time to make change for one customer before another one was thrusting a loaf of cinnamon bread and a fiver in his face. But it kept him warm and occupied, and he loved making people happy, as cheesy as it sounded. The pumpkin hand pies sold out first — _note to self: make more next time_ — and then the pecan cinnamon rolls, and before Greg knew it it was early afternoon and the crowds were petering out. 

He was taking stock of his inventory and counting the money in his lockbox when John and Sherlock walked up. Greg reached underneath the table and pulled out a couple of brown paper sacks. “Chocolate brioche for you,” he said, handing a bag over to Sherlock, “and cranberry scone for you,” to John.

“Ta, Greg. Want to try anything?”

“What’ve you got this week?”

“Well, we’ve got the usuals — Study in Scarlet, of course,” 

(this was the most popular cheese that Sherlock and John sold, and had become their signature offering) 

“and Speckled Band,” 

(“It has a stripe of marble cheese running down the middle,” John had explained to Greg when they first introduced it several months ago)

“oh, and I think I’ve finally come up with a name for Sherlock’s special blue cheese: Blue Carbuncle.” John made a _ta-da!_ gesture with his arms.

Sherlock sighed. “John, a carbuncle is a boil. It’s disgusting. Nobody wants to eat a pus-filled lump of skin.”

John crossed his arms and scowled. “Yeah, well, nobody knows what a ‘carbuncle’ is and it sounds nice. Sort of deep-sea-y.” He looked to Greg expectantly.

“Hey, not getting involved.” Greg held his palms up defensively. “Far be it from me to interfere with whatever crazy system you have working for you.”

“And then we have a couple of new ones,” John continued. “Beryl Coronet’s a goat’s milk cheese with green mold around the outside. And we have a really pungent aged hard cheese made from raw cow’s milk — I call it Devil’s Foot. You'll only want to eat that one in a well-ventilated area.”

“Right, I remember reading about that one on your blog.”

“You _read his blog?_ ” Sherlock looked indignant.

“Shut up. Of course he reads my blog.” John pointed a finger at Sherlock in a way that would be rather threatening had it been directed toward anyone else. “ _My blog_ is the reason our sales have tripled in the past two months!”

Sherlock sighed. “I will never understand why people want to waste their time looking at poorly-framed mobile phone photographs of pots of milk.”

“People like to learn about the process. And they like knowing about the people behind the products.”

“The photo you posted of the mozzarella curds looked like the medical waste from a liposuction procedure,” Sherlock said with a grimace.

“I don’t think anyone was paying attention to the cheese with your arse in those trousers in the background.” 

Sherlock’s mouth snapped shut and his cheeks colored slightly. “Well, _I_ am going to go pack up.” He raised his chin haughtily and strolled back to their stall.

John watched him for a moment — Greg tried not to follow his gaze, because he knew precisely which part of Sherlock’s anatomy it would be directed at — and then turned to Greg with a grin. “Meet up for a pint later this week?”

“Sure, sounds good. I’m having dinner with Molly on Tuesday but any other night should work for me.”

“Great, I’ll text you. Anyway, I’d better help Sherlock before he gets trapped in a collapsed tent again.” John trotted to join Sherlock.

“That was _one time_!” Sherlock shouted.

“Memories fade but poorly-framed mobile phone photographs last forever, love,” John remarked, reaching to unclip the tent panels.

Greg packed up his own unsold merchandise — he always dropped his leftovers off at a local shelter when the market ended — and broke down his tent. He loaded the lot into his car and glanced back at John and Sherlock, who were standing chest to chest in the middle of their packed-up supplies, sharing a private smile. He could see John murmuring something in Sherlock’s ear; Sherlock nodded and his smile grew. 

The last thing Greg saw before he got into his car was John squeezing Sherlock’s hand and saying, just loudly enough for Greg to overhear, “C’mon gorgeous, let’s go home.” And they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it -- my first fanfic ever. Thanks to all of you who have posted comments; not only did they encourage me to keep going, but some of them even inspired later parts of the story. I doubt I'll become a regular contributor (fiction is still not something that comes easily to me) but maybe someday there will be another goofy idea niggling at my brain until I let it out!


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